Go to:
www.Stacyphillips.com

One is about $17, the other is about $34.

The less expensive one is a bargain. Known among dobrophiles as "the green book."

Sort of thought of like Winnie Winston's book for pedal steel.

You'll pick it up fast. But don't believe that because it only has six strings and lacks pedals and knee levers that it's easy. Playing the dobro well, as with pedal steel, is a lifetime pursuit...and great fun!

One thing that some pedal steelers seem to have a problem with is not picking hard enough-not "digging in." Probably because of the light touch required and playing within a narrower string spacing on a PSG.

You have to "dig in" to get good tone out of a dobro.

If you go for the Bashful Brother Oswald and Uncle Josh stuff before the Jerry Douglas stuff, you'll probably find it easier than getting started on pedal steel...

The Green Book is excellent.

Mike Auldridge is a great player to listen to.

Billy is right about digging in, you may want to get the .025 gauge fingerpicks, and dig into the strings as you would a dreanought guitar to get the Big Tone. I like 'em on pedal steel too.

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http://www.johnmcgann.com
Info for musicians, transcribers, technique tips and fun stuff. Joaquin Murphey transcription book, Rhythm Tuneup DVD and more...

[This message was edited by John McGann on 18 November 2006 at 05:53 PM.]

Steinar

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"Play to express, not to impress"
www.gregertsen.com
Southern Moon Northern Lights

I have seen Rob play songs like Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely," the Allman Bros. "Midnight Rider," and Herbie Hancock's jazz/pop hit "Watermelon Man" in high bass open G. It's all there for you.

Jerry Douglas uses G probably 80% of the time, open D about 15%, and some tuning like E or F for a few specialty songs maybe 5% of the time. For example, with Union Station, he will keep a dobro on stage tuned to F for the classic that made such a big hit in the "O Brother Where Art Thou" film, "Man of Constant Sorrow" as sung by Dan Tyminski.

Rob rarely veers out of G, he may occasionally re-tune an individual string for a certain song.

if you choose a tuning other than G as your main style (as mentioned earlier, Pete Grant likes D) then you have to do a lot of mental conversion when going through teaching materials. I don't play much golf these days, but when I did, I played left-handed, and I constantly would have to say to myself when reading an instructional book from a right-handed golfer like Jack Nicklaus: "Let's see-when Jack says to keep your left arm as straight as possible, in my case, it would be my right arm." It was a pain in the rear to have to do that all the time.

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 19 November 2006 at 09:24 AM.]

Another great book is "The Dobro Workbook" by David Hamburger- he breaks up ideas into 1 and 2 measure segments and gets you fitting them together every which way, and includes some great material on melodic (up the neck) playing.
Mike Auldridge has some fantastic video out, the song tapes are split between stright bluegrass and wonderful melodic ballad playing. It's really helpful and inspiring to watch a master at work.
Heffernan's "Bluegrass Dobro From scratch" would be a great place to start as well.
Jay Buckley has a series out called "Virtual Band" with bluegrass standards tabbed out, and back-up tracks at three different speeds for working up to performance speed.

Terry

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Mullen RP D10 /8x5 / MSA Classic 8x4 Nashville 112 x 2 / American Tele and Fender
Hotrod Deville 2x12's
Thank God for music.

and:
www.Elderly.com

I think they can be had for ballpark $570 before shipping.

Higher grade components and a professional setup at the Beard facility in Maryland. Proper setup is big on reso guitars.

You can also find these used sometimes for a bit under $500.

Check out:

www.reso-nation.org

...as well as the for sale section here on the Forum.

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 19 November 2006 at 03:13 PM.]

Terry

[This message was edited by Terry Sneed on 19 November 2006 at 06:47 PM.]

If Jimmy ever comes to your neck of the woods-take his weekend workshop-you'll have enough stuff from the experience to work on for the next year and then some.

Good choice on the Goldtone Beard squareneck. A number of pros, Jimmy included, have said that they wish they had such a nice guitar for the money when they were starting out on the instrument.

It's difficult to say what sounds best-solid wood or laminate-it's a personal choice for your ears. McCloskey plays, IMO one of the best sounding resos on the market-a Beard Mike Auldridge Signature (an 8 string-he used to own a 6 string version) -and it is a laminate guitar made of I believe Finnish Birch. But there are a bunch of other "best sounding guitars" as well. I have a Clinesmith, made from our western native Big Leaf Maple, solid wood-and it is a great sounding guitar as well.

The main thing is to get the best quality guitar for your budget-and if you really get into the dobro, you can formulate an opinion as you progress as to what you would like to have for a dream instrument.

Pat Ickes posted above-he has played in a bluegrass band the past couple of years (banjo), with Todd Clinesmith on dobro.

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 20 November 2006 at 11:34 AM.]

Californian Pete Grant is a fine dobro picker-and he uses a bullet bar-but he also comes from a long background as a pedal steeler.

I like the made-in-Montana E.G. Smith bar, but there are several others that are great. Jimmy Heffernan sells these on his site:
www.jimmyheffernan.net

Go to the Jerry Douglas site-there is a bar discussion going on there right now on that forum:
www.Jerrydouglas.com

Capos-avoid the Shubb dobro capo at all costs. Unless it fits your reso perfectly-it doesn't work very well. I have a Beard capo, and though it's OK-I have heard that Jerry Douglas has been testing a newly redesigned version. The best out there seem to be the Bradley capo, and the newly redesigned Scheerhorn capo (I think this is an improvement over the old Scheerhorn/Flux capo).

Straps-I have a Folk of the Wood strap-adequate for the money-but not great. Webb makes a good dobro strap.

The state of the art strap is from Bobby Poff in Wyoming. I have tried one and it is the most stable, most comfortable dobro strap going. Bobby is a saddle and strap maker and a real artisan.
www.rpoffmaker.com

And you can also buy Bobby's straps thrpugh Elderly.

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 20 November 2006 at 01:51 PM.]

As a wild, in-the-dark guess-I would think it's no big deal, but who can say for sure without checking it out firsthand?

You can look through the bass side screenhole on Goldtones set up at the Beard shop and there is a sticker indicating as much.

Someone posted here or on Reso-nation awhile back about what's the big deal having it set up at Beard? And granted, the majority of the time I'm sure they are OK if they don't make the trip through the Beard shop in Maryland. But they really go over them with a fine toothed comb.

I know of some players where there were a couple of episodes involving structural/quality control issues on Goldtones that were brought into the country and didn't get the Beard shop treatment.

Look the thing over very carefully.

So in regards to what I wrote on your other thread about the metal bodied Dobro-well-disregard it, since you went ahead and placed the order for the Goldtone.

No-I wouldn't send it back-odds are everything is fine with the non-Beard set up Goldtone. It's just that the knowledge I have of some Goldtones WITH problems-they were guitars that didn't go through the Beard process, and by getting one set up by Beard, it's sort of an insurance policy.

It's just that if I were buying one of those guitars, that's how I would go about it.